[ExI] billk's article

[William Flynn Wallace]

Just saw this morning a factoid:  in the time since they were domesticated,
cats' brains have shrunk.  Well, you say, of course.  They don't have to
have the hunting skills, the dealing with other predators skills, etc.
Just be cute and purr when petted.

Physical exercise  and physical games help keep the brain alert as well as
keep muscles toned.  A consultant came to our little liberal arts college
and the first thing on his agenda was to favor more phys. ed.    bill w

On Thu, Mar 10, 2022 at 9:21 PM spike jones via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
>
> A few days ago, BillK posted an article on students’ ability to creatively
> solve problems.  The author opined that their ability was declining (I
> don’t doubt the conclusion.)  That has been rattling around in my brain for
> a few days.  I came up with some thoughts.
>
>
>
> A long time ago, it was noticed that physical fitness among school-aged
> children in the USA was declining, by completely objective measures: pull
> ups, sit-ups, running, etc.
>
>
>
> It isn’t quite so simple as that, for the top scholastic athletes are not
> declining, but rather improving.  We can explain that of course with better
> training, nutrition, incentives (scholarships) and so on.  So while the
> average performance declines, the elite get faster and stronger.
>
>
>
> I am involved with coaching American Math Competition at the local high
> school.  We have access to historical results on that test and the test
> itself.  Our club trains by taking those old tests (which go back 70 years
> (math doesn’t change much.))  Our club performs well above the historic
> averages.  However… that club only contains students who take competition
> math seriously, so I don’t really know how to interpret those results.
>
>
>
> Back to physical fitness: we have seen physical performance of the young
> decline for decades, but it should come as no shock: now students have the
> option to sit on their butts and play video games, as opposed to in the
> long time agos, there wasn’t much to do inside of one’s house generally.
> Watch TV one might suppose, if one could tolerate reruns of Gilligan’s
> Island and such.  Most of the fun was outdoors, doing something physical,
> preferably dangerous as well.  Now, most kids entertain themselves indoors.
>
>
>
> OK then, now consider the older set, say the 60 something crowd.  Think
> back on when you were a teen.  How did you view those who were then in
> their 60s?  How common was it to see 60 somethings out running, riding
> bicycles, hiking, generally doing fitness things?  As I recall, it was not
> common.  Plenty of men worked until age 65, then spun into the ground
> rather quickly after that.  But now they generally don’t.  A much more
> common style is to use the retirement years as an opportunity to get in
> shape physically.
>
>
>
> The physical prowess of the average teen has been declining for decades,
> and is still.  I am tempted to speculate that the physical prowess of the
> average 80 year old is increasing (and has been for decades.)  I might even
> guess the average 60 year old today is in better shape than his 1972
> counterpart.  But I don’t know this and don’t know how to get at that data.
>
>
>
> Ideas please?
>
>
>
> I am coming at BillK’s article around the back way, for once we get some
> framework upon which to think about this, I want to go towards older
> people’s creative problem solving ability.
>
>
>
> spike
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